Lisa Badner

Three Poems

FRUITCAKE
 
My father makes mac­a­roons for a living.
They are a pop­u­lar prod­uct and quite healthy.
The mac­a­roons are named for my sis­ter, Jenny.
“Jennies” they are called. “Jennies Macaroons.”
My father made a “Lisa Fruitcake” once.
Shrink wrapped. In a drab beige box with grey lettering.
Small pieces of shriv­eled raisins, can­died dates. Nuts,
some too hard to chew. It was dry.  Fell apart like “saw­dust”
one cus­tomer wrote, “embar­rassed me in front of my guests.” 
The Lisa Fruit Cake nev­er made it into to a trade show, or an ad.
Rejected unan­i­mous­ly by the distributors,
the Lisa Fruit Cake was a resound­ing failure.
 
 
ON THETRAIN
 
A woman scratch­es her inner ear
with a ball­point pen.
The man next to me is sleeping.
People date for months
before sleep­ing and groom­ing together,
yet this guy is bob­bing onto my shoulder.
Yesterday a woman clipped her nails.
I see a man with ter­ri­ble growths
on his face and neck.
Wearing a wed­ding band. 
All peo­ple have genitals, 
I am nauseous.
A woman with ripped socks and flip flops
opens her tote bag,
rest­ing on the filthy floor.
She could throw up, or have a bomb. 
She takes out a book on world peace.
I am not comforted.
 
 
SPAM
 
The web­site of my poet­ry school
thinks I am Spam.
Or at least, my IP address.
Not that I real­ly under­stand what that is.
But I am flagged. Banned.
I do not sell Viagra.
I swear. I am a poet, of sorts,
and I can not get on the poet­ry school website.
I would be an idiot,
if I did not see the metaphor of this.
 
~

Lisa Badner has pub­lished poems Mudlark, TriQuarterly, Fourteen Hills and forth­com­ing in The Cape Rock. She lives in Brooklyn, bikes every­where and has a day job.